A hard-disk drive (HDD) is a non-volatile storage device that is housed in a protective enclosure and stores digitally encoded data on one or more circular disk having magnetic surfaces. When an HDD is in operation, each magnetic-recording disk is rapidly rotated by a spindle system. Data is read from and written to a magnetic-recording disk using a read/write head that is positioned over a specific location of a disk by an actuator. A read/write head uses a magnetic field to read data from and write data to the surface of a magnetic-recording disk. A write head makes use of the electricity flowing through a coil, which produces a magnetic field. Electrical pulses are sent to the write head, with different patterns of positive and negative currents. The current in the coil of the write head induces a magnetic field across the gap between the head and the magnetic disk, which in turn magnetizes a small area on the recording medium.
Because the actuator rotates to move across portions of the disk, the actuator includes a pivot assembly. The pivot assembly typically includes a pivot bearing assembly, such as a ball-bearing assembly. Because moving parts are involved, the pivot bearing assembly typically includes a lubricant, such as a hydrocarbon-based oil. Such a bearing assembly is typically not completely sealed and, therefore, some of the lubricant is known to exit the bearing assembly and can migrate to the head-disk interface (HDI) which can lead to read and/or write errors. Thus, minimizing the risk of contaminants from the pivot bearing reaching the HDI and causing operational errors is an ongoing challenge associated with hard disk drive design and development efforts.
Any approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.